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David Lamb introduced the first catalog of songs under the name brown bird in the winter of 2002-2003 to friends and family while unemployed and living in Seattle. He returned to New England in 2003 and in the spring of 2004 he was joined by friends and former collaborators Jeremy and Jerusha Robinson. That year they released their first ep, "tauto". A self-titled ep ensued the following spring. Just before their first United States tour brown bird remixed and combined the two eps into one cd titled, "tautology". Their first full-length album, "such unrest", was released in the spring of 2007. In March of 2008 they recorded and released their second full-length album, "the bottom of the sea" on the Portland, Maine based label peapod recordings. During the spring and summer of 2008 David embarked on an extensive solo tour throughout the U.S. in support of "the bottom of the sea." At the end of his tour David met Morganeve Swain and Mike Samos who were playing in the Providence band Barn Burning. After performing with David on all 3 of their shared tour dates it became obvious that the two were a natural addition to the evolving brown bird sound.David, Morganeve and Mike all live in Rhode Island and continue to play shows from time to time with the Maine based members Jeremy and Jerusha. Currently all 5 members (along with a few special guests) are working on a new full length record that will be released on peapod recordings in the spring of 2009.

Chriss Sutherland was born in 1976 in New Brunswick, Canada. He grew up in central Maine a pained, confused but energetic boy. Playing in punk and hardcore bands during his high school years Chriss cultivated his social and political desires, which transformed into artistic/musical aspirations. Upon graduation in 1994 he moved to Boston to form Cerberus Shoal. Quickly, the group relocated to Portland, Maine and the Blue House (Tank 28). Chriss resided there 13 years working, living, creating, recording and touring with the many amalgams of Cerberus Shoal (10 full lengths, a bunch of splits and singles released). In the final years of his residency he helped to found the acoustic evolution of CS, a group called Fire on Fire (an ep and full length released by Young God Records). Now after so many collaborative years Chriss is journeying outside himself to record and tour with his own songs delivered in a solo fashion. Singing in both Spanish and English Chriss writes long, heavy rhythmic tunes on acoustic guitar, which turn into anxious pleas for sense and harmony. He released his first solo record "me in a "field"" in November of 2007 with Tulsa, Oklahoma's Digitalis Industries. He is now releasing his second full length "Worried Love" with Portland, Maine's peapod recordings.

From 2002 to the present, Tim Harbeson has employed Fence Kitchen as both alter-ego and vehicle for exploring his interest in multi-disciplinary solo performance. This perpetual work in progress at times involves puppetry and ambient setting and lighting with original music played live and/or as recorded soundtrack, while at other times, is presented as a purely musical performance. As the music is the impetus and context for Fence Kitchen-- an integral component of the mesmerizing dreamscape of objects and created environment and an extractable, stand-alone export of the world it infuses-- Beading The Rook is both a document, and a continuance, of this ongoing flight of fancy.

Felicia Atkinson

Félicia Atkinson currently resides in Brussels, Belgium. lives in the northern east hills of Paris, France.She's got an english name because of her grand grand father but she was a lonely child raised by her polishmom and her parisian father in an appartment surrounded by books. When she was a kid, she learned a lotof weird things for her age, many of them she had forgotten now, such as chinese, sword, baratanatyam,tibetan, harp, dance or theatre. This education made her creative and playfull. The work of Felicia Atkinson isinspired by two ways of thinking: the Japanese wabi-sabi philosophy of the unfinished, and the lo-fi folk inmusic. Imperfections, raw materials, rock culture are the materials of her body of work which includesperformance, writing, music, drawing, photograph....The main theme that follows her is the perspective of the poetry of small things in which are hided the deepquestions of existance: the missing, the death, the desire, the unspeakable. How to play with importantthoughts through game, rhymes and songs. She plays in a sound project called Roman Anglais with SylvainChauveau and have released an album "Roman Anglais" on O Rosa Records in 2008. Felicia is also involvedin two other bands, Stretchandrelax with her best friend Elise (doing a sexy reductionism with catch helmetsand bird noises) and Louisville, a rock band inspired by trees and strange places. She had played andshowed her work in many places such as La Foundation Cartier Pour l'art Contemporain (Paris), The EmptyBottle (Chicago), The Knitting Factory (New York)

"If you want to study the nature of power and appetite, the economics of eating and serving, where better to look than the restaurant kitchen? Sebastian Agudelo locates his lyric inquiry into the intersections between food and class in the steamy back rooms where the immigrant poor wash the dishes while meals rife with information about culture and history are carried to the tables of those who can pay the bill.... Agudelo invites Whitman and Auden behind the scenes, into the aspiration, struggle and resignation behind the swinging doors. To the Bone is an unexpected, bracing debut." —Mark Doty

Kirsten Kaschock

Kirsten Kaschock was born into a family of dancers. She has earned MFA degrees in choreography from the University of Iowa and in creative writing from Syracuse University. Slope Editions released her first book, Unfathoms, in 2004, and it was chosen as a finalist for the Poetry Society of America's Norma Farber First Book Award, judged by Cole Swensen. She is currently working on a manuscript entitled The Dottery. Her work has appeared in journals including The Iowa Review, American Letters & Commentary, Coconut, Pleiades, and elsewhere. She keeps a blog, Negative Wingspan, and lives in Georgia. -Slope Editions

Saturday, March 7, 2009

“Kensington Soup House. - This building, located in Allen Street, Eighteenth Ward, daily presents a scene of interest to all who concern themselves about the alleviation of human suffering. The society is now busy in dispensing its charities, and many a crushed spirit is the recipient of its bounty. Every morning hundreds of the poorest residents of the vicinity vie to the spot to have their kettles filled with soup, which is received with an eagerness which shows that want and hunger is pinching. The applicants are of all ages and of both sexes and colors. Ragged children come from squalid homes, but there are also some attired with comparative neatness, who show by their demeanor that their position is strange and unpleasant. Women approach at times timidly, obtain the relief and depart quickly, but with eyes that speak gratitude. Old men bowed with age and sorrow also come, and tearfully thank the dispensers of the nourishment which is to prolong their days of sadness. There is much distress in the vicinity of the Soup House, and the society well deserves the aid and co-operation of the benevolent in their good work.” - 2 Feb 1861 Philadelphia Inquirer

"Solo guitar and tapes from Mark McGuire of Emeralds in a heavy minimalist proto-Europe Endless/Kraftwerk style, with delayed arpeggio guitar chopped into melancholy metronomic waves that provide a beautiful backwards transport. Some of the guitar playing reflects on such classy F/X inflected moments as Cul De Sac’s “Doldrums” but there’s also a weird, UK folk aspect that would join the dots between Flying Saucer Attack and Nick Drake.” –We Are Up for Sale

Kicking off the jams this evening is Fishtown’s pride and joy, Enumclaw (aka Norman Fetter of Niagara Falls). This is some of the toastiest mind-melt you’ll come across, show up “fashionably late” to this one and you’ll be taunted over missing such sonic sorcery.

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